Pentecost II

2nd Sunday after Pentecost

The Kingdom of Heaven is like....

Jesus taught in many forms. One form he used frequently was the parable. A parable is a story drawn from ordinary life. It is a story crafted to communicate a truth.
Parables are not unique to Jesus. Jesus did use them in a very powerful way to accomplish several goals.

A parable is not a carefully reasoned analytic presentation of facts that lead to a narrow definition. A parable is a story that not only engages the mind but the heart and the will. It is a story that engages the listener in a process of discovery. The process is open ended. The process itself invites the hearers to discover more about God, other people and themselves.
Jesus’ use of parables reveals what St. Anselm of Canterbury expressed about God. St. Anselm said: God is greater than that which we can conceive. God is greater than the rational arguments and logical definitions people use to speak of God.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the use of reason and logic. We just need to be careful we avoid the intellectual pride that reduces the infinite and eternal God to a set of rational principles.

There are certain things we can know about God. God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is Jesus Christ. There are many things we can only appreciate about God in the experience of the Great Mystery of Divine Love.

Jesus used simile and metaphor to remind us all that God is the Great Mystery. God is infinite and we are finite. God is eternal and we live in the realm of time.
Parables also reveal to us that the Creation is essentially good. And, the creation in all of its unique particularity reveals the divine rational and transcendent pattern of the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God.

God reveals himself to us through the natural order because every aspect of the natural order bears the imprint of the logos, the Word. The seed reveals the mystery of new life, growth and transformation. Night and day come and go in a steady rhythm.
Both are necessary for the seed to sprout and to grow. Sun and air, earth and water all play their part in the development of the seed to produce the abundance of the harvest.
The parable reveals to us that the creation is profoundly sacramental. Through the parable we learn that there are no ordinary moments. God infuses the ordinary with the extraordinary. God infuses the creation with grace.

The parable also helps us understand the Great Mystery of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ. The underlying reality of Jesus Christ is the incarnation. In Jesus, the co-eternal Word of God becomes a particular human being. The Word sanctifies human flesh and incorporates it into the divine life of the Blessed Trinity. Incarnation overcomes separation.
Jesus taught in parables because all people live from a place of separation. All cultures design ways of thinking and indeed ways of knowing that perpetuate separation. There is nothing inherently wrong with rational thought. What is wrong, and more than that, what is deadly wrong is the way people use reason to preserve separation.

The problem of separation is not in the mind, or the heart, or even in the will. The problem of separation lies in the soul. It lies in the real choice the human species has made and continues to make in all of its societies, cultures and religions.

The parable reaches past our reason based defenses and invites us into a different vision of the Creation itself. It is a vision of meaning and purpose. It is an experience of personal love and compassion. It is not anti intellectual. It is both transcendent in its vision and tangible in its experience.

Every time we see a plant growing we have the opportunity to remember the parables of the seed and witness the reality of the living God working in the natural order. And then, we can remember Jesus saying; the kingdom of heaven is just like that. The kingdom of heaven is as close as the winter rain and as sweet as the summer fruit. It has all of the promise of Spring planting and all of the celebration of the Fall harvest.

It is present sacramentally in the waters of baptism, in the bread and wine of holy communion because the creation itself holds the pattern, the plan and the purpose of the co-eternal Word of God. The Kingdom of God is present to each of us because that co-eternal Word became a human being, Jesus Christ.

The Kingdom of heaven is not found in narrow definitions, laws or spiritual disciplines. The Kingdom of Heaven is the reality of the infinite and eternal Word of God implanted in our souls and made manifest in all aspect of the Creation.

Separation blinds us to that reality. It reduces all of our senses to the minimalist outward and visible form. It so distorts our reason, will and emotions that we come to call good evil and evil good without any concern for the consequences of our choices.

The parables invite the soul to consider the inward and spiritual grace. Jesus invites us into an opened ended exploration of reality and experience of truth. Jesus invites us to wake up and pay attention. To ponder the truth, not just to encapsulate it in some narrow categories. To savor the moment of grace when God speaks to us and invites us to experience a new and more abundant way of living. Jesus invites us to consider how our lives can be transformed in the personal relationship with God he offers us in the ordinary moments that hold extraordinary grace.

The kingdom of heaven is not narrow and restrictive, it is like the most amazing miracles that form every day life. It is like the miracle of life itself. It is the Great Mystery of Creation, Incarnation, and Transformation in Jesus Christ.